Computer-aided techniques include Computer-Aided Design or CAD, which relates to software solutions for authoring product design. Similarly, CAE is an acronym for Computer-Aided Engineering, e.g. it relates to software solutions for simulating the physical behavior of a future product. CAM stands for Computer-Aided Manufacturing and typically includes software solutions for defining manufacturing operations.
A number of systems and programs are offered on the market for the design of parts or assemblies of parts, forming a product, such as the one provided by Dassault Systemes under the trademark CATIA. These CAD systems allow a user to design and manipulate complex 3D models of objects or assemblies of objects. CAD systems thus provide a representation of modeled objects using edges or lines, in certain cases with faces. Lines or edges may be represented in various manners, e.g. non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS). These CAD systems manage parts or assemblies of parts as modeled objects, which are essentially specifications of geometry. Specifically, CAD files contain specifications, from which geometry is generated, which in turn allow for a representation to be generated. Specifications, geometry and representation may be stored in a single CAD file or multiple ones. CAD systems include graphic tools for representing the modeled objects to the designers; these tools are dedicated to the display of complex objects—the typical size of a file representing an object in a CAD system being in the range of one Megabyte per part, and an assembly may comprise thousands of parts. A CAD system manages models of objects, which are stored in electronic files.
In computer-aided techniques, the graphical user interface (GUI) plays an important role as regards the efficiency of the technique.
Also known are Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, which refer to a business strategy that helps companies to share product data, apply common processes, and leverage corporate knowledge for the development of products from conception to the end of their life, across the concept of extended enterprise. By including the actors (company departments, business partners, suppliers, OEM, and customers), PLM may allow this network to operate as a single entity to conceptualize, design, build, and support products.
Some PLM solutions make it for instance possible to design and develop products by creating digital mockups (a 3D graphical model of a product). For instance, the digital product may be first defined and simulated using an appropriate application. Then, the lean digital manufacturing processes may be defined.
The PLM solution provided by Dassault Systemes (for example under the trademarks CATIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA) provides an Engineering Hub, which organizes product engineering knowledge, a Manufacturing Hub, which manages manufacturing engineering knowledge, and an Enterprise Hub which enables enterprise integrations and connections into both the Engineering and Manufacturing Hubs. All together the system delivers an open object model linking products, processes, resources to enable dynamic, knowledge-based product creation and decision support that drives optimized product definition, manufacturing preparation, production and service. Such PLM solutions comprise a relational database of products. The database comprises a set of textual data and relations between the data. Data typically include technical data related to the products said data being ordered in a hierarchy of data and are indexed to be searchable. The data are representative of the products, which are often modeled objects.
Product lifecycle information, including product configuration, process knowledge and resources information are typically intended to be edited in a collaborative way.
To this respect, a collaborative workspace can be defined as an interconnected environment in which participants in the product lifecycle (design and also marketing, sales, manufacturing, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), suppliers, and customers) can access and interact with each other's “In-Work” designs, thereby enhancing communication through exchange, direct use, simulation and validation in 3D.
Product data management (PDM) systems refer to tools used to control access to and manage all product definition data of the relational database. This is achieved by maintaining product information (or meta-data).
A PDM solution may automatically store and manage product information and facilitates collaboration throughout the enterprise and across the value chain. A PDM solution may further integrate people and processes by automating and tracking standard workflows within an organization and its supply chain, driving efficiency and accountability, and facilitating standards compliance.
For example, the user may wish to know where a product, e.g. a braking pedal, is also used, that is, in which other models it is embedded. A standard CAD tools enable a user to navigate between parts or products mainly according to the “is composed of” relation. Databases used in PDM systems enable queries to be made on various types of relation between parts or product and the scope of navigation of the databases is the widest possible. In practice, the user can have access to all the parts, products or assemblies, configurations, versions, etc.
Nevertheless, databases do usually not allow the user to easily navigate since the data do not have a graphical representation. Data are identified by file names or types and those names may not be relevant enough to allow for an efficient identification of the items that the user is looking for.
For the sake of completeness, a database is defined usually as a collection of data or information organized for rapid search and retrieval, especially by a computer. Databases are structured to facilitate storage, retrieval, modification, and deletion of data in conjunction with various data-processing operations. A database consists of a file or set of files that can be broken down into records, each of which consists of one or more fields. Fields are the basic units of data storage. Users retrieve database information primarily through queries. Using keywords and sorting commands, users can rapidly search, rearrange, group, and select the field in many records to retrieve or create reports on particular aggregates of data according to the rules of the database management system being used.
Thus, known solutions of CAD/CAM applications make it possible, among other features, to design parts, while a PDM system typically includes a database storing all the data related to the designed products or parts and the relations between said products or parts. For example, if a user, who is designing a product or a part in a CAD application window, is willing to know which parts will be impacted by his design changes, he has to switch from the design application to a data management application and conduct various queries, using for instance product/part filenames. Those switching and querying operations are to be carried out each time the user wishes to get information stored in the database
To this respect, the ENOVIA Solutions make it possible to graphically define, share and manage product, process and resource information stored in a PDM database throughout the product lifecycle process. Among other features, it is provided a graphical tool, which can be displayed in the graphical interface of a CAD/CAM application, and which aggregates user-interactive areas that makes it possible to perform several tasks routinely needed, for example by designers. Such tasks include search-of-part operations, impact assessment operations on the edited parts and update operations. A consistent management of the information is ensured thanks to queries in the PLM database the queries being made directly in the CAD/CAM application window.
Though useful, such a graphical tool is however not optimized with respect to the interaction between a user and the database, notably when a plurality of users, e.g. designers working in a collaborative way, interacts with the database. In fact, this graphical tool does not allow a user to be informed sufficiently early of modifications occurring in the database. In particular, this gives rise to conflicts between users when product parts or products are edited simultaneously by the users as a user is not informed sufficiently early of modifications occurring due to other users. Such conflicts are obviously not desired and have to be detected sufficiently early.
There is therefore a need for a method and a computer system for interacting with a database, allowing for an improved interaction of a user with the database and, if necessary, resulting in reduced conflicts between users of the database.